Jeff Poor

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Monday night, National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg accused MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of posing as a conservative to lend credibility to his assaults on the Republican Party.

“Joe has been living off of his apparently fabled record as a stalwart conservative some 20 years ago, as if that somehow exonerates him from having to actually pay attention to what conservatives are saying or doing,” Goldberg said. “And too often — I kind of like Scarborough, but too often the guy basically is rendering an image of conservatism that is pleasing to the ears of The Washington Post op-ed page and the viewers of MSNBC. And you know, for someone to be denouncing the use of caricature and the like by the right, it doesn’t serve him well to be doing it from essentially the left.”

Goldberg likened the conservative movement to a complicated symphony most people don’t understand, saying all of the movement’s elements and players are properly understood as a cohesive unit.

“My view about all this is that the conservative movement is sort of like a symphony, and you need the big gongs and the loud horn section and all that for some things,” he continued. “But you also need the fine woodwinds and the little, you know, the violins for other things. And I think you can make a serious and sober argument that the voice of the intellectuals and the sober-minded gets drowned out from time to time. But that is not an argument for getting rid of the tuba guys. And it is an argument for sort of recalibrating the music that you’re playing. I think a lot of people who demonize Rush Limbaugh don’t actually listen to Rush Limbaugh. I don’t agree with everything that Rush says, but it’s not like the guy is light on substance and light on serious arguments.”